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This week I sat down with Seattle native Parker Woo, midfielder and face-off specialist for the Colorado College Men’s Lacrosse team. Woo received All-American honors last season after helping the team to a 10–6 record, with a team-high of 171 face-off wins. At time of publication, the team is off to a 3–1 record.

Photo courtesy of CC Athletics

Ben Hall: You should update your LinkedIn.

Parker Woo: I honestly forgot I had one of those.

BH: How long have you been playing lacrosse, and what other sports have you played?

PW: I’ve been playing lacrosse since I was a little kid, pretty much since I could walk. I played soccer all the way through high school, and was thinking about playing in college, but I got recruited for lacrosse, so it was an easy choice.

BH: I was stalking your mom’s Facebook; did your dad used to play lacrosse?

PW: Yeah, he played lacrosse at UC Berkley, which is why I started playing as a little kid. My sister also plays—she’s a freshman at Pitzer this year.

BH: You’re more than just a varsity athlete: your IM broomball team just made it to the championships. What makes your team so good, and what’s it like being in such a coveted position?

PW: You know, we just have a lot of good chemistry going on. One might say we practice, but I can’t divulge those secrets … this is the first time I’ve ever played broomball, so it feels pretty good. We lost the DG broomball tournament in the finals, so this is redemption. I hear we have some pretty steep competition, though.

BH: In high school, you were recognized at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for printmaking. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

PW: I did a lot of art in high school, and I kind of miss it. I got really into drypoint etching, and our school was a heavily art-centered school, so we had pretty good resources. At the end of the year, we submitted all our work, and a lot of us got some awards.

BH:Back in the day, you were a Star Wars character for Halloween.

PW: That was not so back in the day.

BH: Really? When was that?

PW: Well, that has been very consistent throughout my lifetime; it’s a recurring theme.

BH: Because I saw a picture of you holding two different light sabers, I wasn’t sure who you were supposed to be.

PW: That’s a sweet picture. I was just one with the force at that point.

BH: And how do you identify these days as a Star Wars character?

PW: Obviously as a Jedi. Obviously.

BH: A lot of your good friends are guys who used to play on the team and stopped playing at some point, why did you stick with it?

PW: I really just enjoy playing, and I know I help the team a lot.

BH: You played on the same soccer team for 12 years, your mom was the manager, how was that experience?

PW: That was fantastic. We started it in first grade, and it was the same group of guys all the way through senior year of high school. Even though after we graduated elementary and middle school we all went to different schools, we kept playing on the same club team. Those are some of my best friends. We won a couple city tournaments, a couple state tournaments.

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The Catalyst is a weekly independent newspaper produced and managed exclusively by the students of Colorado College.

Published for the benefit of the college community and the surrounding local area, the Catalyst aims to bring general interest and academic-oriented news, ideas, and opinions into greater collective view—to act as a catalyst for informed debate.